5 Things to Know: December 6

Phoenix Investors has scooped up another piece of GE’s lighting legacy, paying $2.5 million for the shuttered 65 acre Circleville Lamp Plant — a onetime powerhouse that employed more than 1,000 workers before going dark in 2017. According to Lamptech, the site opened in 1948 as GE’s principal fluorescent factory, producing everything from PowerGroove tubes to circline lamps to halogen A19 bulbs after the company’s last incandescent plant closed in Warren, Ohio. It was the end of an era built on technology first incubated at GE’s famed Nela Park pilot plant in Cleveland.

The Circleville sale adds to Phoenix Investors’ growing portfolio of GE real estate assets, following its 2022 acquisition of the historic Nela Park campus in East Cleveland. With Nela Park long recognized as GE’s lighting innovation hub and Circleville once its most diverse fluorescent production site, Phoenix now controls key landmarks from both the experimental and high-volume chapters of GE’s lamp-making empire. The firm’s pattern of acquiring dormant industrial facilities suggests redevelopment is likely — though whether these icons of American lighting will find new purpose remains an open question.

In a dispute that feels emblematic of the quietly absurd corners of global manufacturing, LEDLite Industries of Malaysia has sued California’s LED One Corporation, alleging that more than $253,000 worth of troffers, strip lights, vapor tights, and assorted high bays were ordered, delivered, and — based on the invoices — should have been paid for sometime before everyone’s patience ran out.

LEDLite’s filings outline a simple chronology: LED One issued two purchase orders, LEDLite produced the goods, containers left Port Klang, and shipments landed in Baltimore and Los Angeles. LED One accepted everything without objection. Then the payments didn’t arrive.

What happened next is the part that invites a raised eyebrow. After months of reminders, LED One allegedly claimed it had already sent the money — to a third-party company in China that had nothing to do with the contract, the manufacturing, or even the parties involved. No documentation was provided. No rationale offered. Just a statement that the funds had gone… somewhere else.

LEDLite is now asking a federal court to intervene. The case isn’t flashy, but the central question is oddly gripping: how does a buyer manage to pay the wrong company entirely — and expect that explanation to hold up?

For the fourth time this year, Energy Focus CEO Jay Huang has written a personal check to keep the company afloat. According to a December 2 SEC filing, Huang and an affiliated entity, MAN-BO HOTEL CO. LTD, injected $1.2 million in total through a private stock purchase, buying 524,018 shares at $2.29 apiece — the stock’s closing price on November 25.

This isn’t a one-time rescue. Huang previously invested $900,000 across three separate transactions in 2025 alone. With outside investment scarce and Energy Focus still unprofitable, Huang has become both financier and figurehead — and increasingly, the company’s last line of defense.

While the latest filing frames the transaction as routine, the subtext is more urgent. Revenue remains shaky. Military sales, once the bedrock, are in freefall. Commercial projects are sporadic. And Nasdaq compliance continues to hover in precarious territory.

If Energy Focus survives this chapter, it may be less a corporate turnaround and more a one-man bailout.

Just in time for the lighting industry’s favorite season, FRAGILÉ is the small-town spectacle we didn’t know we needed. The feature documentary by Reagan Elkins turns the installation of a 50-foot A Christmas Story-style leg lamp in Chickasha, Oklahoma into a surprisingly layered holiday saga. What started as one man's pitch to revive Main Street becomes a tale of civic passion, public outrage, and municipal theater — complete with cease-and-desist letters and viral fame.

It’s a December treat full of lights, legal threats, and leg-shaped landmarks. But beneath the kitsch, FRAGILÉ uncovers something more lasting: the story of a town wrestling with identity, resilience, and how to shine in its own way. Now streaming at fragiledocumentary.com, the film offers both a wink to holiday nostalgia and a thoughtful lens on community reinvention and conflict.

As reported by AlterNet, Utah-based Village Lighting is feeling the squeeze this holiday season — not from consumers, but from tariffs. Co-owners Jared Hendricks and Dawnita Hendricks say President Trump’s sweeping 2025 “Liberation Day” import taxes have cost them nearly $750,000 this year alone. The small business, which sources holiday décor from Asia, placed its orders before the tariffs hit and now can’t pass the full cost on to customers.

“We went from working towards a profit to working for tariffs,” Jared told NBC News. Despite attempts to diversify suppliers beyond China, the blanket nature of Trump’s tariffs left them with no way out. Village Lighting, once thriving, is now “leveraging everything” to survive — a stark reversal from its record profits in 2024. The case reflects a broader industry crisis, with U.S. holiday décor importers paying an estimated $400 million in tariffs this year alone.